deasphalter

English

Etymology

From de- +‎ asphalt +‎ -er.

Noun

deasphalter (plural deasphalters)

1. A unit in a crude oil refinery or bitumen upgrader that separates out the asphalt from crude oil or bitumen.
   • 1979, Perry Nowacki, Coal liquefaction processes - Volume 131, page 157:

     The underflow from the hydroclones goes to a novel, countercurrent, solvent deasphalter. ln the deasphalter the more polar asphaltenes form a second liquid phase which effectively agglomerates the solids in the oil feed.

   • 1981, Peter J. Brain, Gerard P. Schuyers, Cosima McPhee, Energy and the Australian Economy, page 95:

     The increase in deasphalter capacity (it is given in Table 4.8 in absolute terms since the deasphalter capacity in 1977 was zero) indicates that nearly all of the available short residue pool is processed by the deasphalter/catalytic cracker route in order to achieve the desired 1976-77 motor spirit production level, since the available short residue pool, as Table 4.2 shows, is approximately 601 000 X 0.57 X 0.58, or 198 700 b/d.

   • 2014, R Luque, J Speight, Gasification for Synthetic Fuel Production, →ISBN:

     The deasphalter unit is usually placed after the vacuum distillation tower, where, by the use of a low-boiling liquid hydrocarbon solvent, such as propane or butane under pressure, the insoluble asphalt-like product (deasphalter bottoms) is .separated from the feedstock.

Derived terms

• deasphalter bottoms